Thomas Weibel

Thomas Weibel is a journalist and Professor of Media Engineering at the Fachhochschule Graubünden and the Hochschule der Künste in Berne.

The darkest day in the history of the Swiss Guard

Thomas Weibel 04.05.2023 The Sack of Rome, or ‘Sacco di Roma’, by the leaderless troops of Charles V on 6 May 1527 ended in a bloodbath that also cost the lives of 147 Swiss guards. Traces of that dark day are still being discovered.

During the Sack of Rome of 1527, Pope Clement VII was protected by Swiss Guards as he fled the Vatican. Illustration by Marco Heer

‘Black Maria’ – the world’s first parking meter

Thomas Weibel 25.04.2023 The parking meter is the scourge of the hurried motorist, demanding coins they don’t have on them. It was originally designed less as a way to generate revenue and more to ease parking congestion in cities. The first parking meter in Europe was installed in Basel in 1952.

A traffic policeman explains a parking meter to two pedestrians, Lausanne, 1959.

24 calories for Cinderella

Thomas Weibel 23.12.2022 "Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel": in the 1973 Czech-German fantasy film, three enchanted hazelnuts make all the heroine’s dreams come true. But even without any magic, the hazelnut is a remarkable fruit.

Libuše Šafránková in “Drei Nüsse für Aschenbrödel”, 1973.

The crossbow: A weapon for assassins and freedom fighters

Thomas Weibel 08.11.2022 Wilhelm Tell’s crossbow is, so to speak, the national weapon of Switzerland. In actual fact the weapon has its origins in ancient China, and although superior to the bow the crossbow didn’t have the best reputation.

Crossbowmen at the Battle of Crécy (1346), illustration from the “chroniques” of Jean Froissart (1337–1405).

The iconic Swiss station clock

Thomas Weibel 27.09.2022 The Bundeshaus in Bern, Lucerne’s Kapellbrücke bridge, Geneva’s Jet d’eau: Switzerland has a whole host of landmarks. And yet there’s one of them to which we never give a second thought, even though we see it every day: the Swiss railway station clock.

Hans Hilfiker’s SBB station clock, after 1955.

Copernicus the heretic

Thomas Weibel 19.07.2022 Nicolaus Copernicus is considered one of the founders of modern astronomy. His heliocentric planetary model unleashed an outcry in Reformation circles, especially in Switzerland.

Copernicus’ work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

The forgotten war hero

Thomas Weibel 04.05.2022 Discovered in a museum storeroom, a magnificent portrait of a horseman proves to be witness to a life straight out of an adventure novel: Fribourg mercenary leader Franz Peter König’s wild gallop through the Thirty Years’ War.

Stone Age superglue

Thomas Weibel 28.03.2022 Birch bark pitch is the oldest all-purpose adhesive in history. Ötzi used birch pitch to affix his arrowheads to the shafts of the arrows; other prehistoric peoples glued broken pottery with birch pitch, or sealed canoes with it. Recently, science has also solved the mystery of how it was produced.

Silver birch forest in Gullmarsskogen National Park in Sweden. The trees contain the raw material for the Stone Age equivalent of superglue.